Sekirov Dictionary

supernumerary

UK /ˌsuːpəˈnjuːm(ə)ɹ(ə)ɹi/US /ˌsupɚˈn(j)uməˌɹɛɹi/

noun 5
adjective 4
forms 1

noun5

•
A person who works in a group, association, or public office without forming part of the regular staff (the numerary).
- The judge was a supernumerary, helping the regular judges whenever there was a surplus amount of work.
•
An extra or walk-on, often non-speaking, in a film or play; a spear carrier.
- [A] minor actor or supernumerary often has a better opportunity to watch great actors than the great actors themselves. — 1983
•
Something which is beyond the prescribed or standard amount or number.
- On each side the glass hung one of the large engravings; another over the secretary, facing the window, and the fourth, which for some time seemed a supernumerary, over the door. — 1850
•
A married man or woman who is a secular member of Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic religious institution.
- “Supernumeraries”, the bulk of Opus Dei members, can marry and live in their own homes, with slightly fewer spiritual obligations. — 2024
•
An animal which has not formed a pair bond and is therefore single.
- The best evidence so far that social supernumeraries are physically capable of bettering their lot concerns not rodents but birds. — 1996

adjective4

Beyond the prescribed or standard amount or number; excess, extra.
•
Of an organ or structure: additional to what is normally present.
- “Their aesthetic, if you haven't noticed, is about benign skin cancers, supernumerary nipples. Conventional tattoos belong firmly among the iconics of the hegemon. […]” — 2014
Beyond what is necessary; redundant.
Greater in number than.

forms

supernumeraries

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